Ten Years to Immortality
by Louise Foxhall
Summary: Sequel to "Upon the Horizon" Will is desperately searching for a way to make Elizabeth immortal and so, when an unwilling Jack Sparrow tells him of the "Aqua de Vida", something he coverts for himself, the two are suddenly at war...Please R&R. CH3 NOW UP.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I'm so sorry it's so late. My computer crashed and I'm using one of my dads work computers to get this to you. Anyway, my apologies, I hope you enjoy it despite the delay and Chapter 2 is on the way._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Unfortunate but true. _

Ten Years to Immortality

Chapter ONE

_ "I'm sorry Elizabeth!" Will climbed easily up the rigging to catch a last glimpse of his wife. "I love you!" _

_ "I love you too!" Her words were almost lost to the wind and Will cracked a smile as they reached him, although she already sounded so distant, so far away…He fixed his forlorn gaze on the dark figure still standing where he had left her and still wrapped in his old, battered leather jacket, stained with salt and worse after a decade at sea. _

_ "Look after my heart," he called back, a slight catch in his throat, "I'm leaving it with you!" It was terribly clichéd but the echoes of the sea carried her laughter over the waves and to him nonetheless. His crew pretend not to have heard; he was seldom cheerful these days and never showed any emotions. _

_ "I _will _keep my promise," he vowed, too low for any but him to hear. No more words would reach the ears of his dear Elizabeth, for now she was but a smudge in the horizon that emitted a faint glow in the suns fading light._

_ "You'd better keep your promise William Turner," Elizabeth muttered, eyes on the dark outline that was her husband's silhouette against the hemp of the rigging. "I shan't wait forever." She laughed sadly at this blatant lie and tied Will's bootlace around her neck, the gold signet ring lying against her heart beside the hard iron key she so treasured. _

-x-x-x-

A month later, the happiness of that one day had faded entirely and left the hole in Will's chest feeling emptier that ever. He busied himself with his duties but it wasn't enough. He spent increasing amounts of time wishing he could just forget everything and although he knew he could never forgive himself if he, the ever present memories of happier times were driving him mad and so, as the months wore on, Captain Turner of the _Flying Dutchman _sand further and further into fits of depression, letting the gloom and the mist roll off the sea and wrap him in their shadowy tendrils, the task he vowed to compete seeming nigh on impossible. These moods were only worsened with the bad weather setting in.

"Find me Jack Sparrow!" He barked just after dawn, from his perch in the Crows' Nest, a bottle of rum his only protection against the storm raging around them.

"Pardon, Captain?" His crew knew not what to think of this order.

"You heard me," he snapped, swinging lithely down the rope hanging from the yard arm and landing impressively on the soaked deck. "Sparrow; I want him found."

"Pardon me, Captain, but why?"

"Does it matter WHY? I have told you, I want him found. That should be good enough for you."

"Aye, sir." Will dismissed the sailor with a curt nod, his grey eyes flashing with an unprecedented anger. If anyone could help him it was Jack. There was, unfortunately, no way around this and although Will was loath to engage in any business with the notorious Captain of the _Black Pearl_ it had to be done. No one knew the seas like him and Will was running out of options. He would not fail Elizabeth.

"William…" There was a cautious not in Bootstrap Bill's voice as he approached his son, "Please, tell me, what are you doing?" Will shrugged off the proffered hand of comfort.

"Can't you just trust me?"

"I don't like the look in your eyes, boy. You're up to something."

"You don't understand."

"You don't think I don't know what you're going through?" Bill was incredulous, "You think I wanted to serve Davy Jones over being with you and your mother?"

"You don't understand." Will very nearly stamped his foot like a petulant child. "You just don't -"

"I get it; you don't want to tell me, so all I will say is this, son: don't turn into Davy Jones. His love for a woman drove him mad. You would do well to remember that." Bill nodded; content that he had delivered his message, and clapped Will on the shoulder before turning away and stumping back to the helm. Will watched him go with a cold and almost calculating look on his face. The gentleman inside of him was ashamed of his behaviour but the dominant pirate he had become found he was not at all sorry for his actions as Will too turned away and disappeared for the night, into the organ room that reminded him of a tomb, mulling over the words his father had left with him. _Was _he becoming like the heartless Davy Jones after all? _Would _his love for Elizabeth eventually drive him to insanity? He sighed, stabbing at the crusty keys despondently and creating so dissonant a melody that it seemed to scream at his ears and only managing to emphasize the horror behind his revelations. Was he truly beyond salvation?

-x-x-x-

_Once again, sorry for a late update but the second chapter should be quicker, I've just got to finish it. _

_Thanks to all those who reviewed the prequel to this (Upon the Horizon) and reviews really do make my day so please do click the little blue button to tell me what you thought…_

_Have a great week,_

_Yours, _

_Louise x _


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Really sorry for the late update, I'm just hoping it was worth the wait…_

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Unfortunate but true. _

Ten Years to Immortality 

Chapter TWO

_"'Ow the 'Ell are we meant to find Jack bleedin' Sparrow on this 'uge bleedin' ocean?"_ While their Captain drifted into an uneasy sleep, the crewmen aboard the _Flying Dutchman_ worked at their tasks half-heartedly, whispering furiously amongst themselves about Will's controversial decision but only quiet in their thoughts of mutiny lest they be overheard; Bootstrap Bill had the entire deck under an unfaltering gaze, a grim twist to his lips and a steely look blazing in his eyes.

"'E ain't 'appy with the Capt'n neither, I don't reckon…" The storm seemed to be abating now, as the sky gave a final, shuddering rumble before falling ominously silent allowing the perfidious mutterings to be heard. Two storm grey eyes fixed themselves on the speaker.

"Shut UP!" roared Bill, "And get on. There's a lot of work needs doing after that storm. Loose the sails now, 'til I can find some place to anchor!"

"Aye, sir."

"I'll rouse the Captain. You, man, take the helm."

"Aye, sir." The muttering was forgot as the men were pushed back to work with renewed vigour and idle gossip subsided into focus.

"The deck will need swabbing tomorrow too." Bill added over his shoulder with a private nod as he descended into the belly of the cavernous ship. Will, he decided, needed no more worries, much less the thought of a mutinous and disloyal crew. He knocked hesitantly at the door behind which Will was settled.

"Captain Turner, sir." It was a rare occurrence for Bill to address his son thus and so was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that his formal title was used. Will started and was awake, suddenly alert at this tiniest of interruptions, aching from his cramped sojourn sleeping in the hard chair before Davy Jones's organ. He coughed and cleared his throat of sleep before calling his father in; adopting the curt tone he had lately grown fond of using.

"I'm sorry, William." Bill lingered in the doorway, the old fears he still attached to this room preventing him from drawing any closer. Old fears not helped by the look on Will's face; it was a look he recognised, one he had seen many times, only now, minus the tentacles.

"Oh, it's _you_." Disdain and disappointment were evident in both tone and expression, "They haven't found Jack yet, then?"

"No," came the gentle reply, "And, forgive me, but it does seem something of an impossible task. What is it that you want Sparrow for? William, let me help you. I'm worried about you."

"So you've said." It was very like this new, surly Will to deflect even the most direct of questions. He had taken to restless pacing and biting remarks; he was harbouring an obsession and everyone knew it. They assumed that it was him, deep in his grief for Elizabeth but nobody guessed it could possibly run deeper. He sighed and closed his eyes, still with his back to his father in his chair, thinking in a moment of fancy that he could feel his missing heart beating under the fingers that had crept up to rest on the very scar that prevented such a thing.

"I…I…I just need him, Captain Sparrow, I mean. I need his help to find…something." He finished lamely.

"Something?"

"I don't know _what _exactly," Will admitted, "But I promise; it's not a fool's errand. Far from, it's important." Will's voice had lost its hard, challenging timbre and his words were almost a plea as he looked, wide eyed and honest to his father, seeking support. He no longer appeared the snappy Captain, brushing aside everything and everyone, too consumed in his own melancholy to notice anything else but as a small child reaching out a hand for, reaching out for a hand to hold. He seemed to shatter and crack before Bill's eyes as his steely façade collapsed around him and rendered him a wreck.

"I trust you." Bill assured him, a quiet prompt for more information.

"I need…a vessel for immortality. I need…Jack Sparrow." It pained him how much he had to rely on the renegade pirate lord to turn up. He owed him his sanity and if not his life, Elizabeth's.

"A vessel of…? William -"

"It's not for _me_," Will rolled his eyes, "It's for…Elizabeth." Her name felt like barbed wire as he twisted his lips uneasily around it. It was the first time in months that he had uttered it aloud, most usually confining it to the deepest locker of his mind, too painful to dwell on.

"I see." The obsession suddenly had meaning. "And Sparrow?"

"If anyone knows of anything on this wretched sea that can help me, it's him."

"Aye, most likely."

"I'm banking on him turning up soon. He invariably will." Bill could not argue with that reasoning; Jack Sparrow of the _Black Pearl _had an uncanny way of turning up, whether you wanted him or not. He just hoped it would be soon, for his son's sake. If he weren't already dead, looking into Will's face one would have thought he was not long for this world. An all-encompassing sorrow washed over Bill as he backed out of the room, wishing to give Will some privacy; nobody should have to live such a harsh half-life the way he was but it was time that Will learned that it was better than no life at all. After a decade at sea, the pain should have lessened, numbed, but the one day, that long month ago, had stirred up the dormant longing hiding within him and as Will slipped back to sleep, much more at peace than he had ever been upon this ship, he wasn't plagued with nightmares or the obsession for immortality that had begun to creep into even his unconscious hours but instead, he found himself in a blissful, dreamless state where nothing could harm him, Jack Sparrow all but forgotten until he woke again at sunrise.

-x-x-x-

_Gosh, it has been a long time; three months! I am sorry but I hope this chapter was enough to appease you :) _

_Reviews, as ever, are love and do help me get chapters out faster so if you liked it please click the little blue link below because I love to hear from you; good or constructive and thanks to all you who have reviewed so far. They make my day just that little bit brighter :) _

_Reviewers get cookies and the opportunity to console Will _

_Have a great week,_

_Yours, Louise x_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: When I started this story I had no idea about the extra scene on the beach in AWE so this story will be slightly AU in that respect because ten years on, Will IS still Captain of the Dutchman and mini-Will DOESN'T exist...sorry._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Unfortunate but true. _

Ten Years to Immortality

Chapter THREE

Captain Jack Sparrow knew when he was wanted. He was wanted, for example, by authorities from England to the Caribbean, the Americas, then onto China and everywhere in-between. Elsewhere, possibly, too. He had quite lost track of all the places that he was not welcome; places, that was, that didn't want him there alive, in any case. He also had that uncanny knack of knowing when he was not wanted; several bullets aimed in his general direction or being marooned on a desolate strip of land barely worthy of the title 'island' usually did the trick but what Jack always failed to understand was _why_ they didn't want him. Sure, he was a pirate, but what a_ fine _pirate he was; there was not another like him out there on any of the seven seas. He was brave, he was loyal and there was no hat to rival his anywhere on Earth. Well, at least the last part was true. He even realised, with acute incredulously, that he was not even wanted on his own ship!

"It's 'cos they're all jealous." He found himself telling a bottle of rum; Jack had finally caught up with the Black Pearl a month after he had watched it sail away from Tortuga without him, after a month sailing that infernal dinghy. The dinghy itself hadn't been all that bad; no mutinous crew and no one he would have to share the spoils with but the truth was, Jack needed an audience and he knew, deep down, he wouldn't have made it to the _Aqua de Vida _without a crew.

"Jealous of what?" scoffed a familiar voice; a smaller version of himself clung tight to the neck of the bottle. Jack paused with the bottle half-way to his lips.

"Why, me looks of course! Me hat…" Mini-Jack pursed his lips as if in deep contemplation and swivelled round so he could admire himself in the dirty glass of the bottle. He nodded in apparent agreement.

"Me hat does look pretty good…" he mused. Jack scowled; he hated sharing, even with himself.

"_My _hat." He narrowed his eyes at the miniature replica; first he was trying to claim his own hat, what next: Jack's precious rum?

"Hey, Jack?" The real Jack raised his eyebrows. He leant down close to the bottle and cocked his head to the side as if to examine the smaller duplication of himself, complete with the hat.

"Yes, Jack?"

"Could I have some rum? I'm dying for a drink…" and thus, not for the first time, Captain Jack Sparrow found himself ceremoniously booted from the _Black Pearl_ but this time by a flick of the real Jack's fingers.

"Mine."

-x-x-x-

As well as his aforementioned knack for knowing where he was wanted and where he was not, Jack knew what he wanted and when, on the rare occasion that he didn't, his compass did. But his compass, for the first time, was wrong. He wanted to reach the _Aqua de Vida_, the water of life, the youth fountain, call it what you will, Jack wanted to find it. As did Barbossa and every other stinking sea-dog on his ship, always they talked of it, of immortality, and so had allowed Jack grudgingly to grace the deck of his own ship once again as long as he brought the map and shared the spoils it wrought when found. Jack had of course, agreed, laughing at his own cunning as he planned a way around this bloody sharing lark…again. That was what he wanted; to be the immortal Captain Jack Sparrow and roam the seas forever and a day but apparently his compass had other ideas. Using a conventional compass, both Jack and Barbossa had come together to chart their way up to Cuba on a standard North-West course so why was Jack's compass pointing in the exact opposite of this bearing? His rum was in his hand and for now he reclined in the Captain's chair in the Captain's cabin; what more did he want?

"You want information." It wasn't a question but a statement and the voice spoke from behind the door, nought but a shadow against the frosted glass of the door. A shadow with a plumed pirate's hat.

"So what if I do?"

"And I have it." The voice – familiar but somehow forgotten, as if he hadn't heard it in a long while – was merely bored now.

"So what if you do?" Jack could almost hear the eyes rolling in this mysterious-person's head.

"Jack Sparrow –"

"—_Captain _Jack Sparrow –"

"—Jack Sparrow, I have been searching for you for weeks, months –" Jack was touched, _wanted_, but dead or alive? "—I have information, you have information. Let's do a trade."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Jack adjusted his hat so it sat straighter on his braids.

"You don't."

"So you want me to trust a perfect stranger?" Jack thrust the niggling doubt about "the voice" to the back of his mind and grinned, it did sound like the very thing he lived for; an adventure.

"A perfect stranger?" The Voice repeated with an audible smile, "By God, Jack, do you honestly not remember me?" The door was thrown open and into focus stepped the last person Jack expected.

"William!" Jack swung his legs from over the arm of his chair and stood straight before crossing the room; his familiar gait making Will laugh as he was clapped heartily on the back by the renegade pirate. "It's good to see you again!" Will's expression sobered immediately as he recalled the business that brought him here.

"I wish I could say the same thing, Jack." Jack's smile faltered. "Men," Will was suddenly flanked by two men, as wide as they were tall, so that the three of them blocked any exit, "Take him to the _Dutchman_ and lock him in the brig." He smirked, mirthlessly. "I want answers Jack." The two men seized an arm each and Jack glanced uneasily between them, unable to stop Will plucking his coveted map from the desk beside him.

"Parlay?" Jack asked, expectantly. The two heavies laughed; "_Parlay," _one snickered.

-x-x-x-

Aboard the _Flying Dutchman, _berthed beside the _Pearl_, Jack stood on the deck, still sandwiched between Will's men. Wanted for the wrong reasons then.

Again.

The Fountain of Life was proving to be much more trouble than it was worth…it had lost him his ship. Again. And his crew, and his rum…at least he hadn't lost his hat. Yet.

The members of Will's crew began to drag him, unceremoniously toward the hatch and down to the brig.

"Wait." Will snapped. Jack grinned – saved…_wanted _– "I seem to remember he has a penchant for escaping the brig – tie him to the mast instead."

-x-x-x-

_Again, sorry for the wait...all I can say is I hope it was worth it :) I have a lot of projects on at the moment not to mention school work which has abated somewhat in the holidays so maybe an update soon... :)_

_Anyhoo, happy Saturday and quick competition..._

_Guess the film title and characters involved in this quote; a new one every chapter :)_

**Character1**: Who is this traitor?  
**Character2**: Not likely one among us.  
**Character3**: Where's Will?  
**Character4**: Not among us.

_Have a great week, til the next time dear readers_

_Yours,_

_Louise xx_


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